moved by nature and the natural... painter and textile artist Jennifer Mackey brings her reflections of natures surfaces to the surfaces of chosen mediums...silks, linens, canvases being the ground for dyes, acrylics, oils, shibori techniques.

Thursday, September 10, 2015

I am the worst at keeping these Blogs up to date. it is hardly a Blog but yet things are happening up here in my hill studio. I have been busy with commissions this summer and general exploring the studio itself. There is a lot to do and when not in the drying yet gorgeous property I am in the studio.

This is one of 11 fabric panels I did for a wonderful artist couple of whose work I have always admired so it meant a great deal to do some work for their home.

This is a mono print and surely I could not do it again. These works are all signature 'prints' but I must say they are paintings for they work easily behind a frame as well as a cushion cover.

There has been a few nice bits of traveling since the close of the studio in the spring. I am always moved by texture of landscape and my artistic response to it. So as to not bore you.. I will list just a few...

Sydney Australia Fortress walls

The wear of sun, sea, air and time on rock often gives such a sense of spontaneous design. I am moved by the overlay of natural color and tone. I realize that I am highly affected by this achievement that hundreds and sometimes thousands of years give us. I know this to be a realism I want to mimic and celebrate. The larger pastoral landscapes so many are clever to paint and create are not to be of my first love. The energy I find in the veins of a rock or the fiber of a hand rolled bead from grass astonish my field of vision. It is for this sort of environment I tie up my fabrics, paint textiles, dip dye with plant dyes or surface print with whatever is at hand. I love the surprise that shibori can bring. And I have cultivated my own approach which is anything but predictable. In doing so I hope to maintain a certain energy that is never fully at rest but represents something only the natural environment can give us.

Maori Textile from the Auckland Museum, New Zealand

It was in Auckland at the Museum where I was surprised to see the Maori weavings and textiles using all native plants and colors of earth that I remembered why I love playing with my personal shibori dye technique on natural toes or simply black with lift off dyes creating the imagery. My style is rather the reverse process but there is still a very organic approach which allows for rich coffee blacks and soft gentle browns.

Jennifer Margaret Mackey / owner of Chia Jen Studio

As an artist in a variety of mediums... I have shown and sold my work throughout the United States and Western Europe.
I studied in California, France, and Scotland.
Textiles, Printmaking, Painting, and Poetry... mixing it up and making a comment about environment and life/death.